


sweetheart, sweetheart

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Cold Case
Genre: Coda, Don't copy to another site, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Legacies, Mention of Character Death, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode s04e03 Sandhogs, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 21:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19303780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: Alice Stallworth didn’t decide to write down her recollections until she heard Mac died in a prison infirmary, forgotten and alone.





	sweetheart, sweetheart

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in a folder of random crap, lol.
> 
> Title from the song featured in the episode, "I Wonder," by Louis Armstrong.

Alice Stallworth didn’t decide to write down her recollections until she heard Mac died in a prison infirmary, forgotten and alone.

It was that detective that told her, the pretty blond one who’d helped solve Donny’s murder. She just showed up on Alice’s doorstep one brisk February afternoon and gave her the news, her crystalline blue eyes searching Alice’s face—as if she expected her to be overcome and would need to leap into action.

Alice wasn’t overcome by the news. She merely let the detective—Rose? Or was it Lilly?—into her place and offered to make her some tea.

Lilly politely declined the offer and glanced at her watch, but made no move to cut the visit short.

“Thank you for telling me,” Alice said, though she still wasn’t sure what to do with the news.

“You’re welcome,” said Lilly. “I really should be going… Be well, Alice.”

“I’m as well as I can be,” Alice chuckled, and saw Lilly to the door.

As the girl trekked across the yard, through the snow to her car, it dawned on Alice that with Mac’s long overdue passing she was now the only one left. She was the only one left who’d known both Nate and Donny.

Donovan had never met either of his fathers, except through Alice’s bedtime stories. Nate was Pa, fearless and strong and brave. Donny was Daddy, gentle and idealistic and kind. Alice never failed to tell Donovan he got all of the best parts of his fathers. So it was almost like Donovan had known them too.

But not quite. Alice needed to write down their names, their stories before they too were lost, never to be excavated.

***

Alice often dreamed of Donny when she was feeling lonely. And she so often felt lonely. She had never remarried after she moved to New York, though she dated around a bit before growing tired of the endless dance.

Anyway, she’d been lucky enough to find two great loves. Some, she knew, never found even one.

Whenever Alice dreamt of Donny, it was usually in that diner with that song playing. Back then, Alice hadn’t known Donny didn’t run out on her, so the dreams were always tinged with bitterness, grief.

But she loved him. She couldn’t _not_ love him.

Donny brought her back to life after Nate’s death.

Alice had read something in a magazine, once, about how ancient potters had filled the cracks of their broken pottery with gold. The broken pottery wasn’t something to be stashed away or tossed out in the trash; no, that shattered bowl was made whole again, but the scars wouldn’t be hidden away or painted over. They would remain, like veins of gold, to speak of finding beauty in the rubble of loss and pain.

Donny was like that for Alice, filling in the cracks and empty spaces Nate’s seismic loss had left in her soul. Despite Donny’s love, there wasn’t a day Alice didn’t feel the loss, but that had never been the point. Donny hadn’t tried to make her forget Nate, forget losing him; he’d helped her learn to live with it. And Alice liked to think she’d done the same for him.


End file.
